Boy Scout Camp Revisited 56 years Later

 

Monday, September 12, 2022 - Day 3

One of the reasons that I came to this part of the world first was to visit Camp Kia Kima near Hardy, Arkansas. In 1966 I left home for the first time for a week. I remember very little about the trip. However, three things are imbedded in my memory even now.

Let us start with the bad. After breakfast in the dining hall, we went down to the river for our swimming merit badge which required drown proofing. First the river which I have been saying was the Spring is really the South Fork. Next the water was ice cold. The instructor told us to get in and swim to the deep side of the river. Then we were instructed to “stand” in the water well over our heads by stretching our arms out. Most of the time we were to keep our heads under water occasionally coming up for air. Whenever I raised my head out of the frigid water, the instructor yelled, “Banks, put your head under!”

 No wonder I was freaked out.

To this day every time I jump in deep water I have to put this memory out of my head, and I am a very good swimmer because also at camp I learned my strokes in the sand. I hate sand so I learned fast so I could jump in and try them.

The second memory was sleeping in a two cot tent, I think with a wooden floor, a frame and a canvas over it. If we had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, it was down the path and up to the latrine reeking of human contributions.

There the frame is the latrines now have flush tpilets

The best memory was being in my cot on a Friday night and hearing my name over the intercom or probably bullhorn, “John, you have a visitor in the dining hall.” 

 I got there quickly having no idea who it was. It was dad who drove in the dark after work to see his son. After driving there in the day on gravel road after gravel road, I have no idea how my dad found it in the dark. I felt if I had truck trouble it would be three days before anyone found me.

I immediately took him to an open field where I learned many constellations (which at the time I thought was all of them). I was so proud that I was teaching my dad. Then he said a line I have used a thousand times, “Son, these stars are big as grapefruits.”